Cyberpunk: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier [IMPORT] (Hardcover)

by Katie Hafner (Author), John Markoff (Author) "It was partnership, if not exactly friendship, that kept the group together..." (more)
Key Phrases: West German, Kevin Mitnick, Bell Labs (more...)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 368 pages
• Publisher: Fourth Estate (September 26, 1991)
• ISBN-10: 1872180949
• ISBN-13: 978-1872180946
• Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #3,315,344 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars On the Outside Looking In., January 13, 2003

By A Customer

This review is from: CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised (Paperback)

Although Markoff is an exceptional writer and the book is both easy to read and entertaining, the content is presented as factual when the truth is that these guys definitely wrote the book with only part of the whole story at their disposal. One of the main "cyberpunks" depicted in the book is Kevin Mitnick, who claims that he has never even met John Markoff. How can the book fairly and accurately speak to the topic of hacking during the early days of the Internet revolution when they never did any investigations with real "hackers"? The story is told only from a law enforcement point-of-view. I am sure that the Rodney King story is told differently by King than the LAPD. Same goes for this case.

Like many works today that seem to be written for financial reasons, it seems very one-sided and sensational.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very Entertaining, But Only Half The Story, November 27, 1998

By	Robert Carlberg (Seattle) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised (Paperback)

I read this book last summer and enjoyed it immensely. It's very well-written.

However, having just finished Jonathan Littman's "The Fugitive Game" I have to recommend reading both books to get the full story. Markoff's conflicts-of-interest and questionable journalistic practices aren't apparent from reading just "Cyberpunk." What appears to be a non-fiction account is, in reality, more complicated than that.... You really owe it to yourself to read both sides of the story.

So read this book and enjoy it for what it is -- and then read Littman for another perspective.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A sterile collection of facts, February 18, 2001

By	Adam Luoranen (Santa Cruz, CA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: CYBERPUNK: Outlaws and Hackers on the Computer Frontier, Revised (Paperback)

To me, what makes this book different from most other "hacker documentary" books is the detached style in which it's written. The authors are both journalists, and it shows: The book lacks the warmth of a normal story told from a normal storywriter. Instead, it's a cold, sterile collection of facts, like a 300-page newspaper article.

This is not necessarily a bad thing. It just means the writing is kind of dry. But that doesn't make it boring. Indeed, most of the book is quite fascinating. In fact, after a while I began to appreciate the objective air that this style lent to the book: Most authors of this kind of book either try to be sympathetic to the crackers, representing them as harmless kids who only try to explore, or an evil menace which must be destroyed for our own safety. Markoff and Hafner, however, write with the unbiased, unopinionated journalism that befits people of their background.

Of course, when writing a book, you don't need to express opinions to make the text biased; You just need to present only one side of the facts. However, I do not feel that this is the case with this book. The book does not try to represent one side as good and the other bad. It just tells you something about both. There's both good and bad there.

So what's with all the people who say that the book is "biased"? I'm really not sure. I notice, however, that all of the people who say that are pointing specifically to Kevin Mitnick's case, and recommending Littman's "The Fugitive Game" (which is more sympathetic to Mitnick and his case) as a "better" book. The only reason I can figure for this is that the FREE KEVIN people are upset because the book does not agree with their ideals that Kevin is innocent and should be praised for being a "hacker". Sounds to me like those reviewers, and not the authors, are the ones with the personal bias.

SCREW KEVIN. He overstepped the line and went too far when he should have known better. Yes, his case has been mismanaged, but... But, I digress. Anyway. This book is not the be-all, end-all for learning about the hack/phreak culture (it's only three case studies, after all), but it's a good place to start if you've never familiarized yourself with that culture before. And even if you have, you'll probably find some tidbits here you didn't know. Score one for investigative journalism.